


Lung

by AuroraDefae



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: M/M, suffocation imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 07:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4995160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraDefae/pseuds/AuroraDefae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kind of an explanation for why I don't think I can write in my other marvel fic right now. This is how I feel/</p><p>Explanation: Tony after he poisoned his relationship with Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lung

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the lines in here are from my poems. She isn't speaking to me, and I... yeah, this fic will explain.

He was so incredibly stupid. Isolation had always been a salty aftertaste in his mouth - now it burned him through his eyes and in the back of his throat where he felt he couldn’t breathe. He knew it was because his heart was beating fast while his breathing stayed even, enough oxygen wasn’t reaching his blood, but dammit, it felt like one of his lungs had been removed, leaving him here, on his bed, staring into nothingness as he gasped like a beached fish. The shaking traveling through his hands and the back of his throat were almost not there, they were so slight, so fast. He didn’t know if he wanted to let his mouth hang open, he knew he would probably not make noises, he was so, so, incredibly numb, but he bit his cheeks and his lips, rolling onto his stomach to quiet any noises he might make.

 

Why was he so incredibly _stupid_.

 

 _Normal_ people had lives, _normal_ people did not know isolation as he had had. _Normal_ people did not cling to others that came into their lives so that they never left. _Normal_ people. _Normal_ people didn’t cling to others so much that it became unhealthy.

 

He knew it was unhealthy how much he clung to those in his life, bordering on the definitions of an unhealthy relationship, platonic or romantic, he knew he shouldn’t do it, that his fear of isolation immeasurably led to more isolation.

 

Conversely, a part of him knew this and acted despite his need for others, a part of him threw poison into the relationship.

 

He was going to lose them eventually, better to see it coming than be blindsided when his life grew cold again.

 

He knew he could probably be happy, but the rest of his life would be spent panting, the ache of the missing lung hanging like lead from his shoulders as he struggled to live. There would always be the reminder of the acid he had thrown into the relationship.

 

He was so incredibly _stupid_.

 

He knew he had lost him forever, or with his limited knowledge of actual relationships, what it personally felt to be actually loved, thought he had.

 

Before had been sun and hope. Now he was reminded why he devoutly stayed a pessimist; any sliver of light wedged through his darkness would always go away, would never stay, the ice never warmed, the fear of isolation never broken.

 

_Normal people. Normal people._

 

They’d still see each other for missions, but there would be a divide, a wall, an entire galaxy separating them,  a bubble around them separately that staked them off from the world, from the other.

 

He _loved_ him. No one had ever shown him that he was capable of being loved. Yes, people had been friends with him through the years, most left, others hovered right out of reach. Even if they were there for him, they didn’t _understand_.

 

He had understood, and it was like he had spent decades being held underwater, and all of a sudden he could breathe and the icy water wasn’t settling into his bones and they were _everything._

 

Now he was in the water again, the cold sunk deep into his bones as his soul screamed. He would never come back, he had no reason to come back, there were normal people out there who didn’t cling to you and make you their lung.

 

_“You just need to let go”_

_“You need to love yourself”_

_“You are the only one that can save you”_

 

The people out of reach didn’t understand.

 

He was beyond recovery by his own hands. It was him - the light - who had taken his hands and kissed all his wounds as they started to heal.

 

It was Steve who was gone now.

 

Tony knew he could carry on, but oh god, he couldn’t live. When he thought he was good, had navigated the storm, the clouds and the waters came rushing back, knocking him off his feet as he fought to stay calm and okay so the others wouldn’t judge his inability to heal himself, as he struggled to breathe, as he struggled to keep up apparitions of normalcy.

 

Steve had been a summer rainstorm,

 

And he the acid rain.

 

 


End file.
